Ex-North Tonawanda woman dies after being shot in Wisconsin

A 48-year-old former North Tonawanda woman critically injured when she was shot in the head Jan. 18 in northwest Wisconsin died from her injuries over the weekend, authorities said Monday.

Claudia A. Bunny, who graduated from North Tonawanda High School in 1983, died in a Duluth, Minn. hospital late Friday or early Saturday, one week after authorities claim she was shot by her boyfriend.

Sawyer County sheriff’s officials say that she was shot while inside a truck early on the morning of Jan. 18. After the shooting, her boyfriend, Kerry Stevenson, 52, of Louisiana, drove another vehicle to the nearby bar-restaurant where the couple had been earlier in the evening. He showed up at that restaurant screaming, with his clothes covered with blood.

Authorities have said Stevenson was intoxicated when he was arrested. He was charged with reckless injury and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Sheriff’s officials are working with the local district attorney’s office on the possibility of additional charges, following Bunny’s death.

“It could change the charge to homicide due to an intoxicated use of a firearm,” said Brigette Kornbroke, chief deputy of the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department.

A close friend of Bunny’s in North Tonawanda, who did not want to give her name, said that Bunny had won some awards while working in marketing here, before moving to Wisconsin in August. Bunny also was an avid golfer and softball player.

“She was a very strong person,” the friend said. “She had a great personality, and she loved everybody. She always had a smile on her face.

“I can’t make any sense of it,” she added about the shooting. “She didn’t deserve that.”